The point of any defensive system against incoming air to air missiles, is probably going to be aimed at defending against a few missiles. The eventual goal being to defend against one or two missiles and kill the fighter in the mean time. If you are having to dodge multiple missiles (3,4 or more) then their is something wrong with your fighter, the pilot, or the tactics….The more missiles you launch to kill other missiles, the less you have to shoot down the enemy. With DEW’s you have a defense against very large amount of missiles, but i guess the amount of simultaneous targets depends upon the power of the laser, and the number of turrets, needless to say the first gen of DEW’s (products of the ABC program) would most likely shoot down one target at a time. Even if the opponent air force has to account for 2 or more missiles just to get past your DEW defenses this halves the amount of kills it can get with existing hardware, and throws a wrench at his war planning and execution.

I think why this topic (shooting missiles with missiles) has not been given much thought is because it is heck of an inefficient way to manage air campaigns, better to maintain superiority over a potential enemy in RCS, speed, ISR, weaponry and improve your kill ratios from there..rather then plan to trade missiles for missiles :-)…Defensive capability would always have to be balanced with offensive capability, so seriously doubt that any air force would carry 2-3 specialized missiles just to shoot down other missies, especially with 5th gen where weapon bay real estate is at a premium.

@ DAVID, Programs like HELLADS and ABC are targeted towards developing DEW solutions for bombers and fighters, within the power, cooling and weight constraints of the respective platforms. I think getting an offensive Laser onboard a bomber, while still trying to balance space/size with other weapons is going to be as big a challenge as fitting a defensive laser onto a tactical fighter (f-35).